Proud to be a woman: Womanhood, old age, and emotions

Abstract

This article takes its starting point in the discussions regarding intersecting discourses of gender and age and the lived experience of older women. The main objective is to discuss the experience of womanhood among older women and to demonstrate their active role in creating spaces for themselves and their friends and affecting each other. The study is based on narrative interviews with female members of the University of the Third Age (U3A). The main findings describe older women who actively engage with discourses of gender to embark on positive constructions of womanhood. They create their own spaces for women’s activism that are filled with positive emotions mobilized to support each other. This article discusses such findings and their relevance to the study of old age and gender. As a result, it serves as an invitation to think and feel differently about older women and their experience of womanhood.